Far Away Boys
by IronAmerica
Summary: In an odd turn of events, being exiled turns out to be the best thing that's ever happened to Tom Neville.


Oh look, Tom's got his own piece in Suffer the Children...

Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.

- o – o -

Far Away Boys

_One_

Tom looked around his new posting and sighed. It was not going to be a good four years, he could tell already. Four years before he could send for Julia or beg the president to be assigned to the Georgia border—neither of which would make his wife happy, but by that point, he'd take anything he could get. Just going by how the dilapidated old school was, the newly minted Captain Neville could tell he had his work cut out for him.

The soldiers stationed here had no sense of order, and it looked like they were operating at least seventeen illegal operations out of the one bastion of civilization on this godforsaken edge of the Monroe Republic. And they left supplies unattended.

Neville had only noted that because he'd seen a blonde boy at the back of the supply wagon, digging through a pack before grabbing it and darting away, pack clutched in his arms. Tom threw the first thing he could lay hands on—an old softball Julia had given him as a joke before he'd left for this assignment—at the boy, who collapsed with a cry.

His sergeant—Smith, Neville thought the man's name was—reacted by kicking the boy to make him stay down. Neville had to raise an eyebrow at that.

"I know the boy, sir," Sergeant Smith said when Neville came over to investigate. "We've seen him digging through the bins at least once a month. Never seen him trying to steal rations, though…" He gave the blonde child a little shake. Tom had to frown at the tears welling up in the child's blue, blue eyes.

He knelt down so he was eye-level with the boy and frowned again. He could see a line of bruises on the kid's legs and arms, and one that looked suspiciously like a fading handprint ringing the kid's neck. There were more disappearing under the collar of his ragged, tan-colored shirt. Tom took his sunglasses off to fix the pint-sized thief with a hard look.

"Could you take your shirt off for me, son?" he asked, trying for his gentlest tone. He hadn't spoken softly to a child since the Blackout, so it probably hadn't come out as soft or gentle as it could have. The boy flinched and shook like a leaf in a windstorm, but took his shirt off. Tom's eyes widened as he took in the numerous bruises and how stick-thin and starved-looking the boy was and groaned internally. He handed the pack back to the little thief.

"Don't you _ever_ let me catch you stealing rations again, son," he said in a stern voice, gesturing for Smith to let the boy go again.

The blonde child nodded, pulling his shirt back on before scampering out of sight with the pack.

Tom sighed and made a mental note to add the incident to his report. It was probably nothing…

_Two_

Tom had hated winter before the blackout. After the blackout, he'd hated it even more. Winter in Philadelphia, though, was _nothing_ compared to winter in Chicago. It was pure and utter frozen _hell_. The wind blowing in off the lake didn't help matters either. Tom was grateful that he, at least, wasn't required to do anything but stay inside and keep the peace among his men. It meant he didn't have to go out in the snow.

His first winter in Chicago, thus, didn't look like it would be too bad. The men under his command were rather rough around the edges—at least five of them were refugees from the Plains Nations, but Tom wasn't going to tell anyone—and they would have all been locked up for one crime or another pre-blackout, but they were good at what they did. And, honestly, he enjoyed the easy camaraderie that settled over the base once the snow started falling.

He worked steadily on his reports, going over every bit of paperwork that his predecessor had left behind, and didn't think about much else. There were a few requisitions for items that had gone missing (two pairs of winter boots and three quilts from storage, as well as several pounds of foodstuffs), but that was nothing unusual. At least four of the men had paramours in the surrounding villages. As long as the theft didn't continue past winter, Tom didn't think he needed to put much work into finding the missing items. (As much as he'd like to bellow at the culprits and have them punished as severely as possible, he wanted to keep his head down even more so he could get back to Philadelphia or—even better—to the Georgia border sooner, rather than later.)

The blonde boy who'd stolen his rations in September never even crossed his mind as he filled out the appropriate requisition forms.

_Three_

Early March brought the first sign of spring. And mud. Neville was pretty sure he'd have a severe and utter loathing of mud by the end of his four year sentence out in the ass-end of the republic. He'd hate it almost as much as snow, probably. It was up to his knees by the end of the first week, and then it started raining.

He hadn't thought about the little blonde thief since mid-November when he'd been filling out requisition forms to be delivered as soon as the snow melted. He was rather surprised, then, to see the boy sitting outside the kitchen doors, half-hidden behind one of the bins. It looked like he was waiting for breakfast to be over so the cook would throw scraps out. Judging by how pinched the kid's already thin face looked, Neville guessed it hadn't been an easy winter for him.

The captain sighed and dumped the dregs of his coffee onto the muddy ground and strode over to the bins. The boy looked up at him, blue eyes murky with sleep. Given how early it was, Tom was surprised the kid was even awake.

Tom pulled him up by the elbow and dragged him into the warmth of the base's interior. The cook had extras set out for the men who had guard duty and wouldn't have time to eat their full meal, and for the men who might want something extra to eat. The captain filled a plate with the still-warm food and settled it and the kid at a table near the kitchen's exit.

"Eat up, son," Tom said, a gentler smile than usual on his face.

"…thank you, sir," the boy whispered. The captain smiled.

He wheedled extra food out of the cook and put it in the kid's bag—well, he could always add a few more lines to the requisition before sending it off in a few hours—and headed back to the table. The boy's pockets were bulging with what Tom suspected was extra food off his plate.

"What's your name, son?" Tom asked, putting the bag on the table. The boy looked up, startled. A bit of oatmeal clung to his chin, which he wiped away with the back of his hand.

"D…d-danny, sir," the boy whispered again.

"Well, you take care of yourself, son," Tom said, making a mental note to add the boy's name to the journal he'd been keeping. "And don't steal from the bins."

Danny was too busy shoveling more oatmeal into his mouth as though it were his last meal to acknowledge him. Tom sighed.

"There's better food in the bag. It should last you a week." Tom left before he could say anything more. He was getting soft. He'd made a mistake in September, letting that kid take his rations. Soon enough, he'd adopt Danny and treat him like a pampered pet.

Next time, he'd toss the brat in the brig.

Really.

_Four_

He didn't toss Danny in the brig.

Danny was just too…_pathetic_. It was sad. And pathetic. Of all the places Danny could have stolen food from within the militia compound, and he went for rotten scraps of food in a garbage bin. Tom didn't know whether he should cry or beat some sense into the kid's skull.

Case in point: The scrap bag Danny had been carrying with him. The boy had obviously been trying to fill it this time. Tom recognized the bag as the one he'd given Danny back in September, which seemed so long ago now. There were strips of venison that the cook had thrown out because they'd gone rotten before they could be salted to prevent that. There were also a few pieces of hardtack that had acquired worms and mold, and rotted fruit that had been thrown out because the cook couldn't turn it into preserves as it was too far gone.

Tom sighed and leaned back in his chair. "What am I supposed to do with you?" The boy fidgeted, looking at the floor.

"I'm sorry. I won't do it again."

Tom had to strain to hear the faint whisper. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and put a paper-wrapped package in the bag, before handing it back to Danny. "See that it doesn't."

Maybe he'd just leave food out next time. Tom wasn't going to be able to get rid of him anyways.

The kid was like a stray cat.

_Five_

Captain Neville gritted his teeth and smiled as he tried to convince himself not to strangle the officious little bastard who was the current mayor of Chicago. The bastard was trying to explain why the city was late on the taxes it owed. There really was no excuse that Tom would believe. It was making it _very_ hard to come up with a reason for why he shouldn't kill the man and deal with the assistant mayor. She'd be easier on the senses, at least.

He'd write a letter to his wife as soon as he got back to the base. If he was noticing what another woman smelled or looked like, it'd been too long since he'd been with his Julia. He'd even tell her about the boy who'd come around once or twice a month to take scraps from the kitchen. (The cook had left decent food out next to the bins last week, just in case. Danny was starting to become something of the base's pet.)

That made Tom shift uneasily in his chair. Danny hadn't been by in almost three weeks. As much as he hated to admit it, he was worried about the kid.

He'd ask Julia for a picture in that letter. Get his mind off stray kids and how much he hated the mayor.

_Six_

It'd been almost a year since his exile had started. In that time, Tom had done very little of what he was allegedly out on the border to do. There were no riots to quell, or villagers refusing to pay their taxes, or invasions from the Plains Nations. (More than a few villages had refugees working with them, but Tom wasn't going to put any of that into an official report. Danny was probably one of those refugees, which would go a long way to explaining the scraps he kept taking.)

He'd been away from his wife and his home in Philadelphia for almost a year. It had been a long, trying time. But there was the light at the end of the tunnel that told him he only had three more years to go before he could go home or go to the Georgia border.

…although Tom wasn't so sure he wanted to go to either place. His stray would miss him. Or the new base commander wouldn't be as understanding. Danny wouldn't survive a conscription ship—he'd heard stories about what went on in those, and wished that they'd never been started. It had just been an idea when he'd left the capital, but now, it seemed, they were a reality. His stray was fragile. Sure, the three meals a day would do the poor kid good, but…

He was going to have to take Danny with him in three years.

That was all he could do.

_Seven_

A letter from Julia arrived a week before spring taxes were due. The courier had run afoul of some rebels, but the mail had come through regardless, for which Tom was grateful. There were more orders, including a new one for a capture-and-kill bounty on anyone who was part of the rebel movement. Tom tossed that one onto the pile of papers that were disseminated around the base at a snail's pace. The bounty wasn't enough to entice anyone away from their post, at least, for which the captain was grateful.

He retreated to his quarters after the evening meal, ostensibly to look at more paperwork. The letter from his wife was practically burning a hole in his pocket at this point. Neville turned the lamp on his bedside table up to full and stretched out on the thin mattress, wishing—not for the first time—that he was back in Philadelphia with his wife and their comfortable bed with the clean sheets that weren't made of wool or smelled like cats.

Julia's letter made him smile. She was still doing well in Philadelphia, despite the loss of status that stemmed from their son's idiocy and her husband's exile. Corporal Strausser—the female one—was being social more than usual. Her daughters were thriving and still managing to scare everyone. Corporal Strausser—the male one—was not taking his banishment to Kimberton well.

The ladies of Philadelphia were getting along fine as usual. Julia mentioned that she was grateful she was still allowed to socialize with them. (She was going to scalp Anita Faber if the woman made one more remark about how wonderful _her_ son was, though. That made Tom laugh.) Maggie Foster had tried to beat the diplomat from the Georgia Federation for refusing to allow her to send a letter to England in the hope that it might somehow reach her sons. General Matheson hadn't done anything to her, according to rumor. The diplomat's feathers had been soothed, somehow. Strausser's wife had probably had something to do with that. (She made poisons and sedatives and a good number of the medicines for Doctor Foster.)

It was one of the last lines of Julia's letter that made Tom laugh.

_Honestly, if you wanted to adopt a child, you could have just said so._

_Eight_

Tom had honestly been expecting Danny to live in a tent city in the woods. The boy was dirty and bruised enough for that to have been the only possibility. He was also surprised to find that, not only was the boy _not_ a refugee from the Plains Nation, he had been a citizen of the Monroe Republic for years and was living in an actual village.

And he had a sister.

The two blonde children sat across from him in the mayor's living room, staring at their feet. The captain went over a mental list of the reasons why he wasn't allowed to kill civilians, and read his reports. Mrs. Jackson—the mayor's wife in this godforsaken shithole of a village—had been attempting to hide them when he and his men had arrived for the biannual tax inspections. It did explain why he'd never seen either of them at the previous year's inspection, or why none of the men could ever remember them being added to the tax rolls. Their parents weren't on the tax rolls either, which just raised more questions.

Caleb, the mayor, swore up and down that the children were orphans. Their mother had died after the blackout (according to Charlotte, Danny's older sister—although she didn't look any older than he was—their mother had gone for supplies one day and never come back), and then their father had died a few years later, leaving his children under Caleb's protection.

Without more proof, though, all Neville could do was sneer and terrorize the man with the thought of prison time for failure to report two citizens on his tax rolls every year. He'd love nothing more than to take the siblings with him, but he had no proof of abuse—none that would stick, anyways—and no proof that anything illegal under the laws of the republic had occurred.

It got on his nerves when he couldn't do his job.

And it felt like he was growing a conscience.

Dear God.

_Nine_

Tom had to say he was disappointed when the kid didn't show up after the tax inspection. He'd gotten used to having Danny underfoot at odd hours of the day. It kept things from getting tedious. And, as much as he hated to admit it (especially to himself), he was starting to see the boy as a second chance at fixing the mistakes he'd made with Jason.

Unfortunately, it was looking like the kid was a package deal with his sister. Although Julia _had_ wanted a daughter…

The captain was worried when a second week went by without the boy showing up. Danny had, prior to the taxes, shown up at least once a week to scrounge for food. That irked Tom, now that he knew more about the boy's circumstances. Everyone else in the village—even the boys Danny's age—had appeared well-fed and cared for. Danny and his sister, on the other hand…

There was really no excuse for how poorly-treated either of them looked. Tom had gone over each note he'd made in his journal since meeting Danny for the first time, and came to one conclusion: He was going to have to burn the village to the ground himself.

By the third week with no sign of Danny, Tom was ready to spit nails. Everyone who lived at the base was being careful to stay on his good side. Smith and Templeton had gone so far as to ride past the village whenever they could come up with a good enough excuse. Neither of them had seen Danny or Charlie either.

It took five weeks for Danny to show up at the base for scraps. Tom watched the boy walk through the mess hall, moving with an odd limp that slowed him down to a snail's crawl. The boy kept one arm wrapped around his midsection and refused to meet anyone's gaze, keeping his eyes firmly trained on the ground. Even Templeton couldn't get the kid to look at him, which was unusual.

Tom took Danny to his office at the first opportunity and settled him on the couch along one wall. It was the only truly comfortable piece of furniture in the room—the only one that wasn't buried under a mountain of paperwork, anyways. Danny curled up on his side, blue eyes duller looking than usual. The captain didn't have to look hard to notice handshaped bruises circling the child's neck, or the ones around his ankles and wrists.

He wasn't letting the boy return to the village. He'd send riders to collect Charlotte, and then burn the village to the ground. Tom didn't care what the law said at that point. He didn't care if he never got to return to Philadelphia. There was no way the boy was returning to that shithole of a village. Not while Tom was still breathing.

Danny made an odd croaking noise, causing Tom to jerk out of his thoughts. He looked up, and saw Danny's lips moving.

After a few seconds, the boy finally made an audible noise.

"Why is being a Matheson so bad…?"

_Ten_

When Tom found out who'd let Danny slip out of sight and off the base, he was personally going to flay every inch of skin off the man's body. Then, he was going to feed the remains to a pack of wild dogs. Preferably while the man was still alive. His only consolation was that being a captain meant he could send packages with high priority back to Philadelphia any time he liked.

On the downside, it still meant six months where he could only hope Danny showed up at the base again for food. Preferably with his sister so Tom could personally throw both of them in the brig and never let them out. Personally, Tom thought it would be a lot more comfortable than their current living arrangements. If they lived in a dank basement while the rest of their village lived in relative luxury, and Danny was forced to walk nearly eight miles to steal food, the brig would seem like heaven. Food would be more plentiful, and the cots were standard issue for the Militia. They weren't exactly comfortable, but it was better than sleeping on an unfinished cement floor.

Tom prayed he was right on his hunch about Danny being related to General Matheson. If he wasn't, he'd probably be executed.

And Danny would have no advocate left.

_Eleven_

Learning that his Danny was actually related to General Matheson was a bit of a shock for Tom Neville. What was more surprising was that the general had come all the way to Chicago with a large detachment of men. Of course, it shouldn't have surprised him too much; the general _was_ known to go on drunken monologues about the importance of family.

He knew it was too good to last. By the second day of the general's residence at the Chicago base, Matheson had drunk more than his bodyweight in whiskey and was getting moodier and more prone to violent outbursts. Tom was almost relieved when it came time to raid the shithole of a village.

It was a better outlet for the general's tendency towards rage issues.

The look on Jackson's face was priceless.

Tom enjoyed it almost as much as the implicit orders finally letting him come home.

Almost.

- o – o -

So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Think Tom got off too easy? Drop a line and let me know.

For the readers who've been asking, the timeline of stories in Suffer the Children 'verse is:

Pour Me All Your Sorrows

These Exiled Years

Far Away boys (these three take place concurently)

On the Back of a Broken Dream

Toy Shop Madness

Just a Man

In the Dark of the Night

Taste of Crow

Of Birthdays and Ballgowns (written by Steph-Schell; takes place about six months, give or take a few if my math is wrong, after Just a Man).


End file.
